Speaking AP English

In the course of my time as an AP English student, I've learned a new language. It's not Austronesian, Swedish or something "normal" like that. No, I'm beginning to learn AP English, and no it's not normal.

 

My story begins on one Wednesday afternoon when I entered 5th hour, Ms. Valentino. Little did I know that I had entered a whole new realm,Valentinoa. I thought we were going discuss the story, The Rainy River, from The Things They Carried. I was perfectly prepared for a reading quiz or a group activity. Then I saw Ms. Valentino start writing on the board. It turns out I had entered Abstractlandia, where one idea ,completely different from another, can be practically the same thing. Truth and Fiction? Totally different right? Sorry, truth can be fictitious and Fiction can describe an event better than what actually happened. That day, the next time I plunged into a book, it wouldn't be just to find the plot, exposition and climax. This class was about digging deeper into literature, not just grammar and how to write an essay.

  

You know that you're in AP English when you start devoting 80% of your brain power, when reading, to figuring out what literature devices are being used and what they do to make the story have a deeper meaning. I earned my AP English citizenship badge when I finally started to see the literature devices in this Sherman Alexie story, AND I managed to raise my hand and say something about it in class. It was a proud day for me. I may not be the most active denizen, but I'm no longer a grade-stamp consumer!

Who isn't American, but is American?

America is the melting pot of the world and everyone can be American. Right? Is the African Soca singer considered American? Or the Japanese man wearing a kimono? While America is extraordinarily diverse, everyone is blend of people that all come together at a cultural compromise and that's what makes the melting pot of America. Everyone else is treated with respect, but if anyone that strays too far from the blend can't be identified as American. America isn't a mixture like a salad.  The effect is a uniformity and a distinct American "range" of people who can be identified as American instead of just one group of people who are definitely American.

In Huckleberry Finn, Huck is seen as a little bit different from the rest of the boys who are "respectable", or at the very least don't have drunken missing fathers. He's part of the group and all, but doesn't completely fit in with that group of people. Huck is one of the them, but at the same time isn't. "They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it wouldn't be fair and square for the others"(Twain 256). He doesn't make his situation any better, later on, by helping out a slave.

Just like in the early to mid 1900's, African Americans weren't the most "American" citizens. They were the people who lived in America and spoke English, but they practically had their own little society going on. There was a divide between many of the different racial groups. They had to prove themselves, admittedly over a much longer period of than Huck's initiation, to the country with hard work because they didn't have a Widow Douglas to "kill"(Twain 256).